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Egypt, Elephantine Island in Aswan, 1856

Elephantine Island is one of Egypt's Nile islands, located in the city of Aswan. It is approximately 1,500 meters long and 500 meters wide. Its population is predominantly Nubian. It houses the Mövenpick Hotel, agricultural areas, mostly palm trees, the Aswan Museum, and remains of stone temples from various eras.

The island was known in ancient Egyptian texts as "Abu," meaning "elephant," because it was an important port for receiving African ivory extracted from elephant tusks. This was later transformed into the Greek word "Elephantine," meaning "ivory from an elephant's tusk," which the island now bears.

The island was a pivotal point on the trade routes to the south of Egypt, and was a major base for all governmental, military, and commercial missions heading south or returning home. Some attribute the name to the topographical shape of the island, which resembles a ram's horn or an elephant's tusk.

The Elephantine Island Museum (Aswan Museum) is located in the southeastern part of Elephantine Island. The museum building was built in 1898 as the headquarters of the chief engineer of the Aswan Dam, Sir William Wilcocks. The museum was established in 1917 to house antiquities from the Nubian region discovered before the construction of the Aswan Dam and those subsequently excavated by foreign excavation missions. It houses antiquities dating back to the predynastic period, including statues of kings and individuals, mummies of the ram, the symbol of the god Khnum, various types of pottery, architectural and decorative elements, a number of coffins and everyday objects of ancient Egyptian life, and funerary steles.

The earliest construction work on the island occurred in the late prehistoric period and extended through the early Islamic period. This means it encompasses the history of ancient Egypt throughout all eras, up to the Greco-Roman period.